LondonBangla: A female employee of Canary Wharf based Clifford Chance, was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment at Snaresbrook Crown Court, following a £28,000 fraud committed over a two year period. Jodie Groom, 33years (01/02/1977) of Taylofers, Harlow, Essex, was sentenced on Thursday 27 January, after pleading guilty on the 24th January 2011 to 16 counts of fraud contrary to Sect 4 Fraud Act 2006 (a particular offence in the Fraud Act 2006, reserved for people who abuse a position of trust.) The court heard how Jodie worked as a secretary to senior partners in the company and had access to their corporate credit card.
Between January 2007 and July 2009, she made unauthorised payments for personal use to buy expensive clothing, holidays abroad and foreign currency. The fraud was in excess of £28,000. Jodie, who had worked at the company for 10years, was arrested in June 2009. She had tried to blame a fellow secretary, Kay Flanagan, for the crime. After the allegations came to notice, Kay committed suicide on 18th July 2010.
DC Karen McGarry, a specialist fraud investigator at Tower Hamlets Police said: “Miss Groom abused the trust placed in her by the partners she worked for. This was a deliberate and lengthy fraud over almost two years, the property and cash she stole has never been found and she has never returned any of it.”